“I propose that the business should be settled tomorrow in the house of Rufinus.  You can be present or not, as you please.  If we men agree in our ideas I beg you—­I beseech you to grant me an interview apart.  It will last but a few minutes, and the only subject of discussion will be a matter—­an exchange by which you will recover something you value and have lost, and grant me I hope, if not your esteem, at any rate a word of forgiveness.  I need it sorely, believe me, Paula; it is as indispensable to me as the breath of life, if I am to succeed in the work I have begun on myself.  If you have prevailed on yourself to read through this letter, simply answer ‘Yes’ by my messenger, to relieve me from torturing uncertainty.  If you do not—­which God forefend for both our sakes, Nilus shall this very day carry to you all that belongs to you.  But, if you have read these lines, I will make my appearance to-morrow, at two hours after noon, with Nilus to explain to the others the arrangement of which I have spoken.  God be with you and infuse some ruth into your proud and noble soul!”

Paula drew a deep breath as the hand holding this momentous epistle dropped by her side; she stood for some time by the window, lost in grave meditation.  Then calling Pulcheria, she begged her to tend her patient, too, for a short time.  The girl looked up at her with rapt admiration in her clear eyes, and asked sympathetically why she was so pale; Paula kissed her lips and eyes, and saying affectionately:  “Good, happy child!” she retired to her own room on the opposite side of the house.  There she once more read through the letter.

Oh yes; this was Orion as she had known him after his return till the evening of that never-to-be-forgotten water-party.  He was, indeed, a poet; nature herself had made it so easy to him to seduce unguarded souls into a belief in him!  And yet no!  This letter was honestly meant.  Philippus knew men well; Orion really had a heart, a warm heart.  Not the most reckless of criminals could mock at the curse hurled at him by a beloved father in his last moments.  And, as she once more read the sentence in which he told her that it was his crime as an unjust judge towards her that had turned the dying man’s blessing to a curse, she shuddered and reflected that their relative attitude was now reversed, and that he had suffered more and worse through her than she had through him.  His pale face, as she had seen it in the Necropolis, came back vividly to her mind, and if he could have stood before her at this moment she would have flown to him, have offered him a compassionate hand, and have assured him that the woes she had brought upon him filled her with the deepest and sincerest pity.